Posts Tagged ‘Hizbullah’

As an example of what the insightful commentator Melanie Phillips referred to as a “dialogue of the demented” in her book The World Turned Upside Down, once Israel launched Operation Protective Edge last month, the streets of American and European cities were crammed with activists intent on expressing their collective indignation for Israel’s perceived crime of defending its citizens against the genocidal “thugocracy” of Hamas.

Rowdy and sometimes violent demonstrations have taken place in Berlin, Paris, Toronto, London, and Madrid, where blatantly anti-Semitic chants could be heard, with similar events taking place in such U.S. cities as Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

Joining with Muslim supporters of those wishing to destroy Israel and murder Jews were the usual suspects: “peace activists,” Israel-haters, social justice advocates, and labor unionists who decried Israel’s “genocide” against Gaza as well as the alleged militarism, oppression, imperialism, and brutality imbued in Zionism itself.

What was particularly revealing, and chilling, about the hate-filled rallies was the virulence of the chants and messages on the placards, much of it seeming to suggest that more sinister hatreds and feelings – over and above concern for the current military operations – were simmering slightly below the surface. Several of the morally self-righteous protestors, for instance, shrieked out, to the accompaniment of drumbeats, “Long live Intifada,” a grotesque and murderous reference to the Second Intifada, during which Arab terrorists murdered some 1,000 Israelis and wounded more than 14,000 others.

That pro-Palestinian student activists, those who purport to be motivated by a desire to bring “justice” to the Middle East, could publicly call for the renewed slaughter of Jews in the name of Palestinian self-determination demonstrates quite clearly how ideologically debased the human rights movement has become. Activists on and off U.S. campuses, who never have to face a physical threat more serious than getting jostled while waiting in line for a latte at Starbucks, are quick to deny the very real existential threats facing Israel and denounce Israeli counter-measures to thwart terrorism.

Another deadly chorus emanated from protestors during the rally: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified.” That is an oft-repeated but disingenuous and false notion that stateless terrorists have some recognized human right to murder civilians whose government has purportedly occupied their territory. That is clearly not any longer the case in Gaza, where every Jew was removed in 2005 – and while there is a blockade in effect to prevent the influx of weapons, there clearly is no occupation or, as commonly referred to, a “siege.”

It may be comforting for Israel’s ideological foes to rationalize the murder of Jews by claiming some international right to do it with impunity and a sense of righteousness. Unfortunately, however, as legal experts have pointed out, the rally participants and their terror-appeasing apologists elsewhere are completely wrong about the legitimacy of murder as part of “resistance” to an occupying force. Article IV of the Third Geneva Convention, the statute which defines combatants and legitimate targets in warfare, is very specific about who may kill and who may be killed, and it does not allow for the murder of either Israeli civilians or soldiers by Palestinian suicide bombers who wear no identifying military uniforms and do not follow the accepted rules of war.

So when pro-Palestinian activists and critics of Israel repeat the claim that Palestinians somehow have an internationally recognized legal “right” to resist occupation through violent means, they are both legitimizing that terror and helping to insure that its lethal use by Israel’s enemies will continue unabated.

These fatuous, morally self-righteous activists, many of whom are from the hard left or the pro-Islamic right, are, without any expertise in military affairs, eager to advise Israeli officials on the rules of war and denounce the lack of “proportionality” in Israel’s attempts to defend its population from jihadist murderers. And so eager are they to publicly assert their righteousness as defenders of the Palestinian cause, they embrace terroristic violence and willingly align themselves with Israel’s deadly foes who seek its annihilation.

We are prattling ourselves to death, blabbing in the television studios and in the military briefings. “When the Hamas terrorists emerge from the underground and see all the destruction, they will understand that they lost.” Really? Does anybody in Hamas really care about the destruction and the casualties?

What was Hamas’s status before this war, and what is its status today – both in the Arab world and the world at large? That is a determining factor.

Who requests a cease-fire and who dictates its conditions? That is a determining factor.

We must understand that a war that does not have a clear, determined, unequivocal and decisive goal will always be lost. If you do not have a clear goal – don’t go to war.

Israel does not have a strategic perspective as to why it is fighting. That is why we cannot manage to define a clear goal.

And worst of all, we are fighting unethically and thus endangering our courageous sons in battle.

What are we fighting for, and against whom? In the beginning of this war, the stated purpose was to halt the rocket attacks on Israel. Then I heard that the goal is to destroy most of the terror tunnels (at least the ones we know about).

But rockets are not enemies; I cannot remember ever having been attacked by a tunnel. The enemy is fanatical Arab Islam, which seeks to destroy Israel. You can call it Hamas, PLO, ISIS, Iran or the Muslim Brotherhood. You can call it the Islamic Movement of the North or you can call it Ahmad Tibi, the Arab MK. All of them are different arms of the same octopus. All are of the same fanatical Arab Islamic ideology, defined so well by Tibi: “We do not have rights in the land. We have rights to the land.

The only innocents in Gaza are the IDF soldiers. We are not in a police operation to capture a crime family. We are in a national war, fighting for the existence of the state of Israel.

They (our enemies) sanctify slavery and death. We (the Israelis) sanctify liberty and life. They are the savages of the desert who came to Israel looking for work from the Zionists – and we foolishly gave them parts of our homeland. We armed them with the best weaponry and turned them into a sovereign entity that democratically elected Hamas, by a vast majority, as its legitimate leadership. Therefore, as soon as Gaza’s civilians have been given reasonable time to evacuate, any delay in the momentum of battle or any move that endangers the forces of light in their just war against the forces of darkness is patently unethical.

When Israel retreated from Gaza, it turned that strip of land into the southern arm of the Arab Islamic octopus that seeks our complete destruction. It is the arm of the octopus on the threshold of Ashkelon and Tel Aviv. Anything less than decisive victory in Gaza will bring upon us a much more difficult battle against all the other arms of the octopus.

Many Israelis are asking why, despite our knowledge of their existence, we did not destroy the terror tunnels earlier. Hizbullah has an estimated 100,000 missiles aimed at us from the north. When those missiles start to fly, what will we say? After all, we knew about them. So why didn’t we destroy them?

The Gazan octopus arm is a test case, as the rest of the arms are closely watching it. If it is not clear to the northern octopus arm, the arms in Judea and Samaria, the arms of the Arabs who live in Israel and who are now rising up, ISIS’s arms, and Iran’s arms that an attack on Israel brings about the loss of territory from where the attack was staged along with complete liquidation of the local leadership, the following can be expected: a downpour of rockets from the north, nuclear weapons in Iranian hands, ISIS taking control of the Syrian missile arsenal, and a horrific war in conditions much more difficult than those we face now.

An Arab with Israeli citizenship allegedly turned against the state and now is the first Israeli Arab to be charged with joining Syrian jihadists and fight with the rebels, according to an indictment filed in an Israeli court Wednesday.

The case has been under wraps since his arrest last at Ben Gurion Airport after the citizen, 29-year-old Hikmat Massarwa, returned from Syria via Turkey.

His lawyer claimed that Massarwa had no intention of harming Israel and was in Syria for the innocent purpose of locating his brother, who left Israel for Syria several weeks ago and also is suspected of joining Al Qaeda-affiliated groups.

The increasingly frequent phenomenon of Arabs helping enemy states is of great concern not only to intelligence officials but also to politicians.

Avigdor Lieberman, who heads the Israel Beitenu faction that has since joined the Likud party, has won broad support from nationalists and horrified center-left parties by pushing for a loyalty oath and insisting that Arabs have no less an obligation to the country to fulfill a term of national service.

Israeli Arabs have no less than former Knesset Member Azmi Bishara to look “up” to as a model for a fifth column.

He fled the country six years ago after being indicted for passing on intelligent information to Hizbullah during the Second Lebanon War, in which thousands of Israeli soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded in the 34-day war that devastated northern Israel, including Haifa.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) said that Massarwa, a resident of an Arab area called the “triangle” because of its three-sided area between Netanya and Tel Aviv and the western border of Samaria, is a foreign agent.

Massarwa’s lawyer argued that after his client entered Syria to look for his brother, he was forced “to be part of this population,” referring to Syrian rebels associated with jihadists.

“He did not join the rebels. He helped them build tents and so on, said the attorney, Helal Jabar. “It seems more than a few Israeli Arabs have done this.”

Security agents asserted that rebels in Syria asked Massarwa about information concerning IDF weapons and the nuclear reactor in Dimona and that he was asked to carry out a terrorist attack in Israel, a request he refused.

Arabs with Israeli citizenship have plenty of encouragement to work against the state. Most Arab Knesset Members not only side with the Palestinian Authority but also often speak against Zionism and the existence of a Jewish state. MK Hanin Zoabi boarded the Mavi Mamara flotilla ship, manned by IHH terrorists, three years ago and has incited against the state.

She has called Israel “inherently racist,” rejects the idea of Israel as a Jewish country, and Zoabi has backed Iran’s efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon, apparently preferring to die in an Iranian nuclear attack if Israel would be destroyed at the same time.

Other magnets for Israeli Arabs to help destroy Israel include the Hamas regime in Gaza, which recruit Bedouin Negev, turning several Arab population centers, such as Tel Sheva next to Be’er Sheva, into Hamas strongholds that Israeli police are frightened to enter.

Another attraction for Israeli Arabs to become Israeli traitors is the Palestinian Authority, whose official maps define Arab Palestine’s borders as the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Jordan River on the east, and the Lebanese and Egyptian borders on the north and south.

With the spillover of the Syrian war into Jordan and Lebanon, and occasional fire on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, Massarwa may not be the last Israeli Arab citizen to be charged with helping the enemy.

With Hamas ruling over Gaza and recruiting Bedouin allies in the Negev and with Palestinian Authority Arabs increasingly frustrated with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ failure to improve their political and economic lives, the Syrian civil war is another inducement to work against Israel.

With the spillover of the Syrian war into Jordan and Lebanon, and occasional fire on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights, Massarwa may not be the last Israeli Arab citizen to be charged with helping the enemy.

Fierce clashes between Syrian rebels and Hizbullah at the Lebanese-Syria border, coupled with anarchy across from Israel’s Golan Heights, point to increasing chances of jihadist leaders taking control across the Israeli border from the Mediterranean Sea to the Golan.

Syrian soldiers loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have left the Golan region to back up the defense of Damascus against rebels, the London Guardian reported Sunday.

Mortar shell firing on the Golan Heights, initially errant but later followed by gunfire aimed at Israeli soldiers, have become more commonplace in the strategic mountainous area.

Syria occupied the Golan Heights before the Six-Day War in 1967. It never developed the area and never used it for anything else except as military posts to lob shells on Israel’s agricultural communities below.

Syria’s loss of the Golan to Israel, despite its nearly successful effort to retake it in the bloody Yom Kippur War in 1973, left Israel with a natural fortress of defense along with rich water sources. Every Israeli government since 1967 has encouraged development in the Golan, and more than half of the Golan Heights population now is Jewish. It is the home of major factories, including a winery with an international reputation, and a water bottling plant.

Unlike southern Israel, where the government and the IDF have played footsie with the Palestinian Authority and ensuing Hamas regime for more than 25 years, the IDF is quick to respond to any fire from Syria. The army fired guided missiles across the ceasefire line in the past two weeks.

The absence of the control of Assad, without any justification of his horrendous war crimes, has left Syrian rebels, Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups in control of most of the area.

“We are seeing terror organizations gaining footholds increasingly in the territory,” IDF Chief of Benny Gantz said last week. “For now, they are fighting Assad. Guess what? We’re next in line.”

Israel can no longer count on the United Nations peacekeeping force to man the demilitarized zone between the Israeli and Syrian borders. Rebels have ambushed and kidnapped U.N. troops, and the United Nations last week admitted it has been forced to “adopt a posture which is somewhat more static.”

As The Wall Street Journal wrote Monday, “In other words, fewer patrols and observation posts.”

The newspaper quoted a report a month ago from the Washington Institute, which stated, “Jihadist tactical gains on the Golan and the bleak outlook for Undof [U.N. peacekeeping forces] are fueling concerns that the days of longstanding quiet along the border are numbered…. Undof’s dissolution or incapacitation would end [up] … turning the area into a ‘hot border’ where jihadists could challenge Israel and provoke retaliation – a dynamic not dissimilar to Lebanon.”

Baruch Spiegel, former IDF commander of the IDF liaison unit responsible for relations with peacekeeping forces, told the Journal, “We have never faced this situation, but we have to act very responsibly. But worst case scenarios can bring us worst case answers.”

The situation in Lebanon is no better, if not worse. Ostensibly, the Lebanese government controls the country, but in reality, Hizbullah controls southern Lebanon. Sunni Muslims in control of Tripoli engage in violent clashes on a weekly, if not daily basis, in an effort to wage war against the government dominated by Hizbullah’s political party and pro-Syrian parties.

The fragile government fell last week, and the new prime minister, Tammam Salaam, is faced with the influx of nearly one million Syrian refugees, both pro and anti-Assad. He also operates in the shadow of the Iranian-backed Hizbullah terrorist army, which had deployed itself alongside Assad’s forces.

Another bloody clash on Sunday between Syrian rebels and Hizbullah left dozens of the terrorist army’s fighters wounded or killed, according to opposition sources quoted by the London-based Arabic language Al Asharq Awsat.

Throughout Lebanon, Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim factions are in all-out war against each other, and as each side gains allies and weapons from Syrian, there are enough arms to blow up the country into a civil war that would make the 15-year civil war in the 70s and 80s look like a schoolyard brawl.

Hizbullah alone has been estimated to have more missiles than most governments in the world.

Fierce clashes have broken out between Hizbullah’s terrorist army and Syrian rebels, increasing the threat that the civil war will spread as far south as Israel’s border with Lebanon, where the fragile government fell last week.

Syrian opposition sources told the London-based Arabic language Al Asharq Awsat that Hizbullah suffered heavy casualties and that dozens of wounded fighters were taken to a Beirut hospital.

Hizbullah reportedly has ringed the hospital and is asking for blood donations.

Meanwhile, the rebels attacked again in Damascus, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens more in a business district that houses government bank and finance ministry offices.

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations is urging European nations to follow the example of France’s declaring Hizbullah a terrorist organization.

“We welcome the French government’s decision, [which] follows the declaration by the Bulgarian government of Hizbullah’s responsibility for the attack in Burgas in July, 2012 and the conviction of a Hizbullah operative in Cyprus,” said Richard Stone, Chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference.

“During the Conference of Presidents Mission to France, we had extensive discussions about this issue with President Hollande, Prime Minister Ayrault, and Foreign Minister Fabius, and found them responsive to the arguments we put forward,” they added.

Declaring Hizbullah a terrorist organization would impose restrictions on Hizbullah’s dealings and would “send an important message about the determination of Europe to deal with terrorism seriously.”

Ben Zygier, the Australian Jew who became a Mossad spy and committed suicide in an Israeli prison cell two years, ago was arrested in Israel for acting without orders to carry out a bungled attempt to turn a man close with Hizbullah into a double agent.

The scheme backfired and led to the exposure and jailing of two valuable informants for the Mossad, Der Spiegel reported Sunday.

If the report is true, it exposes the missing key to the mystery surrounding Zygier’s arrest. His identity was revealed several weeks ago following an investigation by the Australian ABC news agency.

A joint investigation by the German newspaper and Australia’s Fairfax newspapers concluded that Zygier was demoted to a desk role after his self-assigned venture and faced at least 10 years in jail in a maximum security prison, such as the one where was found dead after he hanged himself.

He had tried to win over to Israel’s side a man of European descent and who was close to the Hizbullah terrorist organization. Zygier supplied the man with information, including the names of two top Mossad agents in Lebanon. The unidentified man double-crosses Zygier and turned over the names to Hizbullah, which arrested them in 2009 and sentenced them to 15 years of hard labor.

The investigative report also stated that the capture of the two agents, Ziad al-Homsi and Mustafa Ali Awadeh, may have foiled a possible effort to assassinate Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah.